Empty Apartment
by The-Cynical-Goddess
Summary: AU Raven leaves all of her dark secrets behind each day at home while she attends school- including the pain her father inflicts on her. When a group of friends come too close to finding out her secret, will she crumble and let them in? BB/R
1. Chapter 1

**Empty Apartment**

Note: Readers sensitive to domestic violence may have issues with this work as a whole.

**A dedication: To anyone who has ever suffered at the hands of a family member. My prayer for you is simple: May you find healing.**

Raven Roth sighed as the school day came to an end. She was not her other senior friends, and she did not celebrate the ending of each day. On the contrary, she felt her head becoming heavier as the clock ticked towards two thirty, the release time for the high school. Her arms would gradually grow heavier as she opened her locker, and the smile she kept plastered on her face during the day (she could only assume it looked more like a smirk than an actual smile, but it was an improvement from outright unpleasantness) would come unglued.

She hated to go home. The only thing that even brought the slightest smile to her lips was that she was not going home instantly; she had to tutor her friends Richard and Kori first. She leaned against her locker waiting for the two and surveyed herself in the library window.

All she saw was a scowl and a pale glowing face, the rest of her face obscured in the darkness. Raven did not think of herself as beautiful, but she also did not consider herself ugly. In her own mind, most likely due to everything that had happened in her life, she simply existed, and anything that happened as a consequence of her existence was generally in some way, shape, or form her fault.

By now, she knew what the rules of the game were. She kept her emotions close to her heart, and kept her heart guarded. This was the simplest way to avoid letting anyone take from her what had already been taken once.

"Raven!" Said a cheerful female voice, jerking her from her thoughts. She looked up to see the cheerful Kori, dressed in a flowing pink sundress and half-dragging Richard by his arm, coming toward her. "I am so glad to see you!"

Raven smiled back at Kori as best as she could. "I'm glad to see you too," she said, slamming her locker shut as she pulled her English book from it. The book was thick and one of her favorites, and she was glad to be able to help her friends with the poetry unit they were doing. Not only was it refreshing to be able to talk about her favorite subject, but it was nice just to be able to stay after school without having to lie about why she was staying.

"Hi," said Richard simply. He was not a boy of many words; he usually left that up to their friends Vincent and Garfield. He stood next to his girlfriend, looking for all the world like he had been dragged her against his will. Then again, as Raven saw the nail marks in his arm where Kori had been clinging to him, she had no doubt that he may have been physically dragged to her locker due to Kori's obsession with being 'on time' for everything.

She gave him a sympathetic smile and he gave one back. "Are you two ready?" Raven asked, draping her thin jacket over her shoulder and picking up her messenger bag.

"Yeah," Richard said, "But where to go?" He ran his hand through his thick black hair and smiled. "By the way, thank you for helping us with this."

"We are most grateful!" Kori said in a gushing voice. Before Raven could stop her, Kori had moved forward to embrace her. Raven hugged her back with one arm, wincing as Kori's arm brushed an old bruise on her back.

"You okay?" Richard asked. For as quiet as he was, he was naturally observant. "You look like you're in pain."

"I'm okay."

"All right then," Richard said, and started to lead the way to the library. Raven smiled. She was grateful that at least one of them was able to make choices, because she and Kori never got any work done when it was just the two of them. Kori was constantly distracted and Raven's temper was usually thin, which resulted in minimal work being finished. Richard acted as a kind of natural leader, and a buffer.

Still, she secretly hoped having Richard there didn't make the study session go by too quickly. She was more worried than ever, after remembering the day-old bruises on her back, about going home.

"Aren't you hot?" Richard asked suddenly.

"Huh?" Raven asked, blushing because she had been caught totally off-guard, lost in thoughts she tried to avoid while at school. "Oh, no, of course not."

"Kind of a strange day for all black pants and a long-sleeved shirt," he observed casually. "Sure everything is okay?"

Sometimes, Raven found herself wondering how much her friends knew and how much they didn't know. She hoped they knew nothing although, with her frequent trips to the emergency room and the constant pink slips that called her to the nurse's office, she guessed they might have their suspicions. She could almost feel the cut running down the right side of her arm burning, as though Richard could see it through her shirt. She cursed his keen observation.

"Of course it is," she said, a bit too sharply. Richard just eyed her suspiciously, nodded, and let the subject drop. She sighed gratefully and sat down at the nearest table.

"So what're you guys not sure about?"

"Everything!" Said the pair of them together, and then they both laughed nervously.

"I am so sorry to be taking up so much of your time," said Kori. "I feel most badly."

"Don't worry about it," Raven said, cracking her book open. "If you guys will turn to the first of Poe's poems…"

The friends stayed in the library for well over an hour, Raven patiently explaining metaphors and similes and helping the other two to take detailed notes for each of the possible essay questions. The work was repetitive (mostly due to Kori's frequent questions) but Raven found it easy. In fact, her mind remained wholly occupied until Richard happened to glance at his black-banded watch.

"Four thirty already?" He asked, stretching out. "It's almost time for me to hit work."

"Wait, what time did you say it was?" Panic crept into Raven's voice.

"Four-thirty. Why?" He narrowed his eyes a bit as though suspicious of her sudden interest in the time when thirty seconds ago, she had been perfectly calm.

"I… I totally forgot. I have a… doctor's appointment." Wow, she thought to herself, that was the lamest excuse you have ever come up with.

"I am so sorry to have kept you!" Kori gushed, standing up and reaching for her pink-covered English book. "Perhaps Richard can give you a ride to the place of your appointment!"

"I only brought my motorcycle," Richard said quietly. "Sorry, Raven, but you're going to have to walk." She could tell that he was not buying any of this; he was simply too polite to say anything.

"I'm okay. Really. I'm sorry I have to cut out on you guys. Call me, Kori, and maybe we can meet up tomorrow morning to go over everything really quickly." In her head, she thanked Richard for both his silence and his excuse.

"I most certainly will!" Kori bubbled as Raven gathered up her books. Fear welled up in her heart in a way that most people never would've experienced at going home, and her only thought was one that most people would've thought only ironically:

My father is going to kill me.

She sprinted from the library.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Raven barely made it through the gate of the lawn leading to her house before five. Her messenger bag bounced painfully against her right leg, and she winced as she took the last sidewalk with long, graceful strides that made her appear to fly rather than walk.

The house on Northern Avenue arose suddenly and without warning, an old house that had been converted, no doubt by the former owner, into a set of six tiny apartments. The windows were all shuttered tightly, although one on the third floor drooped its green, battered body towards the ground. The front door stood open, letting a little rectangle out onto the porch in the cold fall air, showing the time and the shortening of days.

A familiar fear flooded Raven, starting in her mind and working its way through her body. Already winded from having run the almost fifteen minutes- a game she was by now an expert at- she felt her limbs turning to lead. Her steps became slow and ungainly, and she lowered her head.

Remember, she told herself firmly, walk slowly, keep your eyes down, and for the love of God, don't talk.

Raven's biggest problem was not talking. Despite the fact that she had learned to keep her cards close to her chest, a kind of fury would always burn in her that manifested itself in easy-to-say words that were never worth the pain that followed them. She hated her father; she knew that she hated him, and had known since the death of her mother Arella that it would never change. She knew little of her mother; all she knew was that, with the loving supportive figure of her mother gone suddenly and unexpectedly (and perhaps not entirely naturally) one night, the demon that was her father had ruled over her life.

In her head, she referred to him as The Monster. When she could avoid it, she did not use the word 'father' to describe the man that co-inhabited Apartment C6 with her. Instead, he was The Monster, and she never spoke of him to her friends. She knew they were all curious about him, but avoided their questions with simple shrugs or nods. They had learned, way back in her sophomore year when she'd transferred to Jump City High School.

She could remember transferring, could remember moving to this ugly little apartment complex, as though it were yesterday. The entire week had been but an ugly impression; her father had beaten her, told her people were asking too many questions, and sat in his large, ugly leather chair, drinking, while she'd packed their meager possessions into a box. Judging by the fact that the move was sudden and occurred at night, she could only assume they were running from something.

Raven's thoughts of the past had carried her inside, to the narrow lobby area. Hurriedly, she fished her key out of her pocket and opened the mailbox, cursing her own slowness. She knew her father was likely to already be home, knew she was walking right into punishment, but knew that there was no escape.

She had tried to escape him once, in the other city they'd lived in. She winced with the memory of how there had been no escape. He had found her. Just as he would find her now.

She glanced through the mail as she took the steps two at a time, trying to get home. Her mentality was one of simply 'getting things over with'; she did not want to risk making The Monster any angrier, not when he would simply find her and make her life worse.

The letter on top was from Princeton, the official seal catching her eye more easily than any of the numerous ads, bills, and other papers. Despite her nagging fear and apprehension, Raven felt a tiny lift to her heart. This was her application, her one ticket to freedom. More than almost anything in the world, she wanted to attend school somewhere with a kind of prestige to it. It was not any kind of arrogance on her part; it simply seemed like the fairytale ending to a nightmare that had been playing out almost eighteen years.

Naturally, The Monster was against the idea of her attending a university. "Garbage!" He'd spit at her. "You're garbage and the shit they teach you in those places is garbage. You want to learn about life? Go out on the street. That's life. Your damn books aren't life, girl. You can't hide in a storybook! Nobody can hide in a storybook forever!"

The conversation always ended in screaming. He would be screaming at her that she was not worth enough to attend college, and she would be screaming as he kicked her in the ribs. She had tried not giving her the satisfaction of her tears, but that resolve had broken when she was younger, broken by the time he'd broken, quite literally, her right arm. Arella had been alive then. Arella had held her, had tried to fix the pain. But the fact that she withheld her tears only made him try harder to cause them.

She threw the door open as she reached it, not delaying the inevitable. Even though she cried, Raven Roth had a certain inner strength. She lived through the hell. She accepted the hell. Hell was but a place, a place to be until something better came along.

"You're late," came the voice of her nightmares.

He sat in the middle of what was meant to be a combination of a living room and a kitchen. Only a bare bulb and the light from the broken shutter lit the room, casting shadows into the long, bare corners. A simple table was set up in the middle of the room, with a large, hole-filled leather recliner and a single broken-legged chair beside it. The kitchen was worse for wear, but perhaps the worst part of the room was the man sitting in the center of it.

His eyes were small and beady, his hands clamped around a large can of beer as though it were the most precious item in the entire house. The arms were largely muscled, and the hair black and thin atop a pointed, nasty face. The Monster looked at its daughter, and its daughter looked back in pain and fear.

"I'm sorry. I was helping my friends, like I told you I would be."

The Monster laughed. The beer can in its hand was suddenly crushed flat, and Raven dropped her bag to the floor, knowing that if she held it, he was likely to either destroy its contents or use it to hit her body with. "Drop the mail and come over here where I can see you, my lovely daughter." He laughed again, a laugh that held no joy, no love, only a darkness that Raven could feel even before she stepped towards him, dropping the mail on the table.

"What's this?" The Monster asked, holding her application aloft.

"A letter from Princeton."

"A society full of idiots," he said, and spat on the envelope before putting it down and rummaging through the mail until he found what he was looking for; the envelope was undeniable, but obviously important, for the man laughed and set it aside before turning back to his daughter.

"I want to go." As soon as the words were out they sounded too direct, too harsh, and Raven knew she had played the cards wrong.

"No daughter of mine," he said in a soft voice, "Is going to pay good money, my money, to go to a school where they teach nothing but liberal bullshit!" He stood then suddenly and Raven tensed her legs, prepared for the blow that she knew was coming, and backed towards the bare white wall.

He hit her before speaking, a square smack across her cheek. "You are going to stay at home. You are going to get a local degree and work at a reasonable job, and take care of your fucking father. Don't you think I've earned that? Don't you think I've earned being taken care of?"

Raven let out a little gasp as the blow hit her face and pressed her palms to the wall. Don't say anything, she reminded herself. Just don't say anything and you'll be okay…

"Answer me!" He hollered, his knee catching her in the chest and making her double over. He laughed as her breath came out in a sharp cloud.

She could not answer, and so the beating continued. She received blows to her chest and neck, her knees, and her face. She could not stand, could not think, and finally she whispered the word she never wanted to say to him:

"Yes."

He picked up the letter and threw it at her form, which was still prostrate on the ground. "Get the hell out of my sight. Clean yourself up, you disgusting slob, and then make me dinner. I never want to see that garbage in my house again. Unbelievable."

Raven rose weakly to her knees, grabbing both the letter and the bag on the way to her tiny room. It was little more than a closet, with garnish off-wish walls and minimal furnishing. Her bed stood unmade in the corner, across from her tiny desk. She dropped her things to it before falling on her bed and picking up the only other thing of any value in the room; Arella's mirror.

The tiny, jewel-encrusted hand mirror had belonged to Raven's mother years before. Raven held it and used it to look at the sizable cut on her cheek. Dabbing at it with her finger, she looked over at her desk to see the only other thing there that she cared about; a photograph.

During her junior year, her friends had convinced her to be Garfield's date to the dance, and the five had gone to homecoming together. Back then, Victor had been dating a girl- Raven forgot her name- and the six of them had gone together. The picture was taken outside of Kori's house, and it was the only photo of the six of them in which Raven wore two things that were extremely limited in her life; a sleeveless dress of the deepest midnight blue and a smile.

It was the closest they would ever get to being in her house. Her father hated the fact that she had any kind of friends, any kind of support system, and told her to keep them away. He made it clear what he thought of them, made it clear that she was good enough for no one.

Sighing to herself, Raven stood up and prepared to go cook dinner for The Monster, the letter forgotten with her school papers.

How long, she thought until I can just be free?

_(Please review? I had a hard time writing this chapter... Mostly because its hard to reflect.)_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Raven ran into school late the next day, heavy bag jarring painfully against her shoulder. She cursed her own slowness, but the events of the previous evening had not only made motion difficult; they had required an extreme amount of cover-up on her face and the backs of her hands. She had smeared her eyes with mascara to make herself appear tired and forged her father's signature on a late note. If the secretary in the office knew that something was amiss, she never said. Rather, she looked up at Raven quizzically over the top of her magazine, as if to ask her if she could ever be on time, and scribbled out a pass for Raven's late arrival to English.

She dropped hurriedly into her desk, feeling the burn on the back of her thigh as well as on her cheeks as the English professor, a tall, slender woman by the name of Ms. Gunthrie, turned to give her a quizzical look. Ms. Gunthrie loved Raven and her ambitions to be a writer and a teacher, and was always sympathetic to Raven's lateness as long as there was a pass involved. Raven handed her the pink slip and marveled at the fact that, while all of this had transpired, the woman had never once stopped talking.

"…Handing back your tests," she said to the class, picking up the thick stack of poetry tests. There were a series of groans from different parts of the classroom, which were promptly ignored as the woman picked up the stack of papers and began to distribute them.

"Another excellent essay, Ms. Roth," said Ms. Gunthrie quietly, handing Raven her paper face-down. Raven picked it up nervously, only to find that her teacher had splashed a garnish sticker with a 'Way to Go!' next to the 100%. Smiling to herself, Raven looked over, worriedly, at Kori. Kori's eyes were focused on the paper nervously, waiting for the teacher to reach her. Raven had helped them with the last series of essays too, and was hoping for the best.

She saw Kori's face light up and knew she had done the right thing. She tenderly touched the bruise on her left shoulder and reminded herself that this, if nothing else, was what made life worth it.

She ran through the essay test with no particular clue what she was writing and joined Kori at the end of class. Dressed in another bright sundress and open-toed shoes, Kori appeared to have no clue anything was wrong with her friend. "Friend Raven, I have done it! I believe I have finally aced an English test!"

"I'm proud of you," Raven said in-between grimaces of pain as Kori hugged her tightly. "Really, I am."

As Kori was about to open her mouth, undoubtedly to say something cheesy she'd learned from a popular show about teenage friends in high school, Raven saw Richard and Victor walking up the hallway, heads bent together as Richard made an angry gesture towards where the girls were standing, his hands thrown in the air in exasperation.

Upon spotting Raven, both stopped talking, which led her to wonder if they had been talking about her. She shook her head calmly, as if to clear it of such a stupid thought, and waved to both of them. They waved back, and Richard came over to Kori's side. Victor stood next to Raven, looking calm and collected as ever. It was as if the argument between he and Robin, or whatever it had been, had never happened.

"Hey girls," he said, smiling. Victor was, all things considered, quite a lady killer, but he thought of Raven and Kori as more of his sisters than potential dates. "Raven, are you on one of those diets where girls try to sweat off all their weight or what?"

"I'm cold," Raven replied tonelessly, her voice quavering a bit.

"How can you be cold?" Asked Richard. His tone was light, teasing, and Raven assumed she must be crazy to think they had been talking about her. There was no accusation in it. "And do you own any other sweaters?"

"Its easy and no, I don't." She found herself becoming annoyed and decided to promptly switch the topic. "Where's short and annoying today?"

Anyone else might have raised their eyebrows at her, but conversation among the five friends was as natural and easy as breathing, and Victor answered instantly. "Downstairs in your calculus class about ready to cry all over his notes. You have a test today, remember?"

"I see by her face that she didn't," Richard observed casually. Raven pawed at her bag, trying to grab the calculus bag out of it without putting any additional strain on it.

"I have to run!" She yelled as she was running, leaving her three friends standing in the hallway. She barely made it to math in time. Looking down at her over the edge of his glasses was her math professor, whom she and her friends had named Mad Mod. Mad Mod earned his name from talking endlessly to his whiteboard and completely ignoring his student's questions or pleas for help. She slid into her seat next to Garfield, who looked over at her. As Victor had predicted, however unkindly, there were tears already in his eyes.

"Dude," He said to Raven, looking over at her with his lamplike brown eyes practically awash in tears, "I don't know any of this!"

"Did you study?" She asked coldly, trying to sound disinterested. She studied Garfield- His hair unkempt, his Guitar Hero t-shirt hanging around him loosely, he was the stereotypical image of that nerdy, funny guy that everyone liked- Or, more typically, liked to make fun of.

"No! I was playing video games with Victor last night!"

"I swear you two are soul mates," she said coldly, looking over the book. She bit back the panic in her mouth and looked down at the equations. According to her notes, y could be equal to any number of things, and she had no idea how to find it.

"That was cold, Rae!"

"How many times have I asked you not to call me that?" She hissed at him, studying intently as Mod stood up and banged his little cane off the desk, calling an end to their conversation.

Garfield infuriated her in more ways than she could count. He was hysterical at times, but for the most part he was just a geeky guy she hung around with. He had taken her to dances and out to other school functions before, but she could not bring herself to regard him with anything other than a kind of well-practiced contempt in public.

She blushed slightly, knowing there was a reason the contempt had to be so well-practiced.

"Today you will be taking your calc test. No talking, swearing, chewing bubble gum, sneezing loudly, or asking to be excused before the bell, okay, duckies?" A class of fourty-two groaned their displeasure, but Mod did not seem to notice as he passed out the papers.

Raven found herself looking over at Garfield, who was concentrating on the test. He was by far the smartest of her friends, and she found that kind of general innocence appealing. However, she also found that she was annoyed by how easily the test seemed to be coming to him.

She left the classroom sure that she had not gotten a single question right. Garfield babbled the whole way up the stairs, but she was ignoring him.

"…Hand?" His question, coupled with the startled look on his face, jerked her back to reality. "What happened to your hand?"

"Nothing."

"You know," he said, suddenly all seriousness, "I really worry about you, Rae…"

"Shut up," she told him, but something inside her was touched that he would worry at all.

_(Sorry this is so short and I've been so lax on my updates. Bad month sums it up quite nicely. Kara, I'm praying for you... This is your story as much as it is mine.)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

The next few days were a haze to Raven Roth. Each night she would arrive home to find that her house was empty, a phenomenon that concerned her more than her father actually being present. The emptiness of the house was disquieting, and she always found herself looking over her shoulder, expecting every shadow to strike her, every movement to bring her an unreasonable amount of pain. She moved from room to room like a sullen ghost, keeping the door to her room shut at all times.

That Friday, her fears were realized. The girl lay sleeping on her bed, her face buried in her calculus book where she'd fallen asleep studying, when a horrible voice hissed in her ear the words "Get up."

Raven bolted upright only to find her father standing there looking at her with the usual hatred in his face, a paper in his hand. "Do you know what I found in my mailbox this morning?" He asked her. The smell coming off him was a dangerous mix of gin and some form of tonic, the smell of bars and desolate hotel rooms. Mentally, she cringed; last time he'd been gone for days on a drinking binge, she had not been able to make it to school the next day. She felt her eyes widen against her will.

"Answer me," hissed the Monster.

"I don't, sir."

"College applications. About eighteen of them." He reached into the pocket of his horribly matted jeans and produced a wad of mail, brightly colored envelopes that seemed to shimmer in the distinctly low light from Raven's desk lamp. "Why the hell would you be receiving college applications, eh?"

"They just send them to students," she whispered weakly. The truth was that she had requested every single one of those applications; she had been intending to fill them out and mail them without her father's knowledge.

"So you have no interest in them?" He asked, his breath smelling faintly as he leaned down to be on her level, his horrible eyes glaring into hers. "You are sure you know where your place is?"

Raven longed to speak. A thousand words fluttered about in her brain, all of them clamoring to escape. Part of her wanted to demand the letters, part of her wanted to defy his wishes, and part of her wanted to run. She could tell that no matter what her answer was, this was going to end in pain. Instead, although it ate at the feeling of freedom inside of her, she nodded and braced herself for the blow.

He struck her and she fell, a crumpled heap, on the floor. She did not resist. Nothing seemed worth resisting for. The Monster stood over her with a look of disgust on his face, looking down at her tiny form as it was tangled in the sheets.

"I will personally make sure," he hissed terribly at her, "That if you ever try to leave the way she did, I'll break you the same way I broke her."

Raven nodded as the blood began to gush from her cheek from the fall. The Monster turned to leave, and every muscle in her body seized up with a terrible pain, a sort of realization that shook her to her core: He was trying to take away her escape. As he walked away from her, still grumbling about her worthlessness, she felt the tears start to well up as she realized how badly she needed that escape. Seventeen years into her life, she was beginning to crack.

It hurt to breathe.

For some reason, her mind flashed back to school that day...

_"Raven?" Garfield asked her, sitting across from her at the lunch table. It had been days since he asked about the back of her hand. "Where's your lunch?"_

_Her stomach fluttered in an annoying way. Lately, that flutter had been ever-present when he spoke to her. Part of it was nerves, which coursed through her at the thought that he might have realized something was going on, but for the most part it seemed to just be Beast Boy; he was, after all, a caring soul in his own warped little way, she reasoned._

_"Forgot it," she said in a loose voice, pretending to stare at her physics notebook. _

_"Can I get you something?" He asked inquisitively, looking at her over the top of her book while making a horrific face. She wanted to laugh at him, but bit her tongue and instead grimaced. Everyone else was watching the exchange between the two with interest and curiosity; they rarely spoke only directly to each other. Victor's face appeared knowing, but Raven assumed she could have imagined it. Lately she seemed to have a growing paranoia that any one of her friends could catch on to the hell she lived in._

_She refused to put them through that, and the thought hardened her.  
_

_"No," she said flatly, with the same irritated tone._

_"I just worry about you," Garfield said suddenly, causing everyone else to turn to the pair of them and watch in quizzical interest. "You never eat, you never smile, and you've been acting all weird since this year started."_

_"I have not," she replied defensively. "Anyway, aren't you supposed to be studying for the physics test so you don't fail?"_

_Beast Boy's eyes widened in panic and he fished his book from his bag, the moment forgotten. Raven sighed and ignored it too._

All at once, Raven realized the pieces of her life were cracking. Her friends were on the verge of finding out that something was wrong with her, her father was purposely destroying her future, and lately, she'd been unable to find any kind of reason to get out of bed.

Things looked hopeless.

For some reason, then, Garfield floated into her mind, accompanied by a single thought:

Maybe this isn't so hopeless after all.

She picked herself up off the floor, then, and dusted her jeans off. She suddenly remembered; tomorrow was the day she was supposed to meet Kori for coffee and English homework. Sighing, wondering how she was going to slip away from The Monster, she stretched out, feeling that every inch of her body was bruised.

Garfield was driven from her mind, then, but it would not be long before he drifted back in; quite possibly, next time, in a bigger way.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Raven winced and sighed simultaneously as she slipped out of the window of her house, clinging to the siding of the house for dear life as she exited. Her skirt caught under her foot and she winced again, closing her eyes and steadying herself. She breathed in and descended to one of the tree branches and started to climb down the tree, her sleeves and bag catching on the way down. She stopped every few feet, breathing in. She wished for all the world she could walk down the hallway, knowing The Monster was gone, but she did not want any of the neighbors to see her.

Not that her father was likely to talk to neighbors, she thought, but it was the last thing she needed. She checked her watch under her sleeve as she jumped to the ground, cursing momentarily, and thanked God that she had been able to slip so safely out of the house. She knew that Kori would be waiting for her, and she could not bear the thought of keeping her friends waiting much longer, especially since they had been unnaturally suspicious of her actions lately.

She ran through the town as quickly as her body would allow, repeatedly shifting her bag from shoulder to shoulder to avoid leaving the pressure on any one bruise for too long. She stopped just short of her destination and fixed her hair, gazing back at her face. She checked her right eye for the signs of bruising, but her cover-up proved infallible and she did not see the bruise. She could still feel it, though, slightly warm and painful to the touch. She forced her lips into the closest thing she had to a smile- a sneer- and walked quietly into the café where they occasionally met.

The room was well-lit but small, a comfortable place owned by two of Kori's older relatives, who spoke little English but paid their employees well and adored their niece. They smiled across the counter and her aunt, brilliant red hair turning grey with age, came over and took Raven's hand in her own.

"Hello. You do shots or drink coffee today?" The woman laughed, obviously making a joke, and Raven bit her lip to keep from wincing. The woman was referring to the time Raven had done an espresso shot during finals week to stay up late studying with Kori, and had promptly had to stand and pace for the entire duration of the evening.

"Dori, please let friend Raven be!" Kori's voice carried from the back table, where she was sitting between two people Raven had not expected to see. Richard looked bored to death, and Garfield had his head in his Calculus book, no doubt absorbing information faster than any normal person would ever want to, let alone attempt to do. Both of their heads snapped up, Richard wiping the droll look off his face to smile, and Garfield stood up and came towards her.

"Raven!" He shouted as Dori backed away to make drinks for the four of them, moving across the room towards her. "We missed you, Raven!"

"You saw me yesterday," Raven commented coldly, not smiling. She stepped backwards to avoid his hug, and she saw something like dejection in his eyes. It was in that instant that she realized something strange: She did want him to hug her, but she knew it would hurt, and she was determined not to let him know that she was hurting. The thought puzzled and confused her, and she sighed openly before she could stop herself.

"But it's nice to see you again!"

Rather than dealing with what she was thinking- she imagined it had come from her parents, this tendency to avoid everything uncomfortable- Raven sat down at the table across from Kori and pulled an open book towards her without a word. Her silence must have spoken volumes, for Garfield sat down and buried his head in his physics book without a word, not talking the entire time that the other three worked through their English homework. Despite her best efforts to keep the subject out of her mind, she had to wonder how Garfield had ended up there.

Despite the turmoil in her head, the hours passed quickly, and it was only when Richard stood up and declared that he had to get to work that Raven looked at a clock. The happy hours that she spent with her friends were such a sharp contrast to the time that she spent at home that she could barely understand it most days: The days were split, the hours changed from hellish to wonderful in an instant, by a simple smile. She shook her head: She was only in danger if she was thinking, because thinking was what prompted her to speak when she knew she shouldn't, prompted the dark bruising and the angry words and ultimately the pain…

She supposed she had said her goodbyes without paying attention, for Kori was gathering her books and hugging her and Richard was waving before the pair of them walked out the door, leaving her alone with Garfield. Part of her wanted to tell him to leave her alone, but the other part of her wanted to speak to him, to find out what he was thinking. The look on his face was far from normal, and she noticed that he had something clutched in his hand.

"Yes?" She said, trying for a monotone but relaying something between irritation and hope. Her tone seemed to take him aback, for he paused for a moment before speaking.

"Just want to walk with you," he said quickly, smiling. "I don't live that far from you, after all."

She had never thought of how close Garfield lived until that moment, realizing he was only a few streets over. It gave her comfort, in a way, but it also made her realize how much closer her friends could be to discovering her secret if they tried She smiled quietly in response, not exactly giving him permission but not taking it away either. In truth, she liked the idea of company, and could not muster up the usual sarcasm that she directed at him. He seemed to take this as enough of an affirmation and held the door open for her.

They walked on for a few minutes in silence, enjoying the still air and the late afternoon sun as it bathed the street. Suddenly Garfield stopped and touched Raven's shoulder once, with an exceeding gentleness that made her jump back slightly. His eyes reflected something between shock and hurt, but he repressed it and held out what he had been holding.

"I didn't know you were applying to Princeton too, Raven." His smile could not have been wider as he held out the crumpled application she had shoved into her book to hide from her father days ago, smoothing out its edges. "They're my top choice. It'd be great to know someone. Have you looked at the essay?" All of the words came out in a rush of warm sincerity that made Raven's throat ache, and she bit the inside of her lip to keep from saying anything rash. Meanwhile, she could hear the screaming in her head, feel the bruises on her arms as though they were crawling slightly…

"I'm not planning on applying," she managed to choke out, trying to act somewhat normal.

"But you'd be a great fit there!" Garfield reached forward and grabbed one of her hands, the other still holding the application out between them. "You're so smart, and I'm sure they'd take you just based on your grades. They have a great English program, Raven. You could write, and, and…" He started to stammer over his words, as he always did when he was excited, and looked down at the ground with a surprising amount of embarrassment for how he usually acted.

"I just think you can do it. Just think about it." He finished quietly and put the application into her bag without a word, the tension between them mounting. Raven stared at him, unable to think of the right thing to say, or anything to say… She was stuck, momentarily, on the fact that someone believed she was capable of something.

Replaying the scene that night, she regretted not saying a word to him. More than anything, however, she regretted letting him leave. Still, she kept the application close, the physics book containing it under her pillow.

She felt hopeful, dangerously hopeful, and she knew somewhere inside her that hope could be killed, would be killed.

And yet…

And yet it felt so beautiful to have someone believe in her, even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

She slept soundly for the first time in what felt like years.

_A/n: I know, I know, where have I been? Much has changed, dear readers. I've fallen in love, gotten a third job, and am working on my senior thesis. I am busy. But I'm trying. I'll be back much sooner this time. Reviews welcome._


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